A Theory of Everything (Sort of) | Hacker News Reader

A Theory of Everything (Sort of)

nytimes.com

18 pointsjardmell8 comments

We are increasingly taking easy credit, routine work and government jobs and entitlements away from the middle class — at a time when it takes more skill to get and hold a decent job, at a time when citizens have more access to media to organize, protest and challenge authority and at a time when this same merger of globalization and I.T. is creating huge wages for people with global skills (or for those who learn to game the system and get access to money, monopolies or government contracts by being close to those in power) — thus widening income gaps and fueling resentments even more.

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> While these social protests — and their flash-mob, criminal mutations like those in London — are not caused by new technologies per se, they are fueled by them.

Untrue according to the conclusions in this study: http://www.cepr.org/pubs/new-dps/dplist.asp?dpno=8513.asp

There's no correlation between social media penetration and social unrest. It would happen anyway but through traditional channels.

You know, I'll be the first to admit that Friedman doesn't hesitate to ignore any solid evidence and a look instead for the closest funny/shiny/trendy anecdote, story or buzzword. Gosh, even Malcolm Gladwell does better "research" than Friedman!

But presenting as counter-evidence a publication behind a pay wall is not much better, either.

Can you provide us more details than a simple hyper-link to an abstract that doesn't relate to your point?

Good point, plus doesn't the study end in 2009? "Budget Cuts and Social Unrest in Europe, 1919-2009"

It just addresses growing media penetration? How on earth can this study address social media with a data set that is mostly pre-2000?

I think the best we can say now is that the jury is still out. I have no idea how citing a study where the bulk of the data is from the 20th century can say anything useful about social media. Thanks for posting the link to the study though - always glad to see folks trying to back up their assertions with evidence.

Here is the document:

http://www.scribd.com/doc/62248736/DP8513

I'm not sure if it's free to read or not since I may be behind a university proxy. I think it is though, it's more or less a draft.

I see two problems with this:

1) This study concerns mass media, not social media nor new technologies

2) It is very specific about the effect of media on social unrest due to budget cuts. I read the article quickly, but as far as I can see the reasons the author suggests for the mobs are unrelated to budget cuts.

Ref:

Further, we examine if the spread of mass media changes the probability of unrest. This is not the case. If anything, higher levels of media availability and a more developed telecommunications infrastructure reduce the strength of the mapping from budget cuts to instability.

http://www.nypress.com/article-11419-flathead.html is my general reaction to Friedman.

Yes, that's my general reaction to Friedman too. This article is a bit better than his usual thin gruel though, it mostly points out the obvious but does time things neatly together. It's worth a quick read if you're trying to procrastinate which is apparently my main goal this evening.

And who ends up on top? Us computer scientists.

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